Fall
by Vetyver
Summary: Batman is plagued by a series of mysterious recurring dreams involving Nightwing. But Bruce is hardly a stranger to nightmares. So what is so unusual about these? And what if it's not only Bruce suffering from the same night horrors? ( -Updated: chapter 3 re-uploaded. I can't believe I missed off the last paragraph when first submitting it!)
1. Chapter 1

He'd been here before; of that, he felt dimly aware.

As if slapped back into consciousness, his head snapped up from the darkness, all senses scrabbling to establish his surroundings. His first thought was of his dry throat being choked with cloying, acrid smoke; then the volume was turned up on a mulch of confused shouting and groaning metal. The floor beneath him was shaking at a high frequency, and he became aware of a growing pressure on his eardrums - a sure sign that wherever he was, it was shooting skywards at an alarming rate.

His sight was the last sense to register. Amid the heavy haze, he could barely make out any discernible shapes until an alarm started to blare and the entire wall facing him began to open, just a crack. The thin strip of sunlight was almost blinding, but the smoggy haze was sucked out of the opening, and now he could see figures fighting, grappling- was that…?

"Nightwing!"

A face looked up and briefly reflected his surprise. It was Nightwing, indeed, but to his shock, Batman noticed his mask was missing. A bruise discoloured his right temple and a gash seared his cheekbone. He was also barehanded and barefooted, his gauntlets and boots replaced by recent ligature marks. Batman took quick stock, but remained unsettled by the unmasked countenance of his former partner.

The figure that Nightwing had pinned down renewed its struggle with a shriek.

"...finished! Can't you see, Nightwing? You pressed the button to shoot us back up. We are going to burn in the atmosphere!"

Bucking and rolling - for a second, it looked like Nightwing would lose his grasp. All questions batted to the background, Batman tried to leap up from the shadows and help fight the mutual foe, but he couldn't move; why did he feel so lethargic - as if every muscle were encased in clay? He looked at his hands. He was missing his gloves too… and his utility belt.

Nightwing was atop his enemy again. Exhausted but resolute, he snarled,

"_Call. The. Others. Off._"

Defiance. "Why? I'm dead anyway."

Determined, steel-blue eyes drilled deeply into his opponent's. "Because I know what you came here for. And I almost get it, really, I do. You just _don't_ get to do it at the expense of our entire civilisation. Now, you heard my orders to my teammates; you know what will happen if you don't do what I say. So I'm telling you again. Call. Them. _Off_."

Despair and defeat rolled off the attacker in waves. His acquiescence came in a whisper, barely heard above the screeching sirens: "Fine."

Two pairs of eyes followed warily, diligently, as the adversary stumbled towards the control panel and balefully punched out a universal transmission code.

"All units… retreat. Authority code 34625, retreat fully. This is the official order. Over."

Static. Then -

_"Order received. All units retreating, over."_

Batman pursed his lips in approval. Whoever 'they' were, they were no fools. They could see what was happening to its leading craft. Its current condition - and trajectory - could only mean it had been compromised.

White noise took over the receiver. All units out of range - all must have pulled back and returned to origin. Batman let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding.

A mirroring sigh of relief sounded from Nightwing, and Batman saw him leaning against the panel, eyes closed, with one hand pushing back his black, sweat-slicked hair. He looked more tired than Batman had ever seen him. He was just about to call out to him, when -

Suddenly, everything seemed to happen at once. An explosion sent a shockwave rippling through the thin floor, and metallic groans filled the air - whatever craft they were aboard, it was breaking up. The defeated adversary took the momentary distraction to punch a different code - and the slit in the wall began to open fully. The world tilted, and everything began an inexorable slide towards the gaping exit.

There was no time to think, and nothing else in his sights. Batman's inexplicable lethargy was shaken off and he dove towards the exit towards his falling partner. He barely registered that their enemy had nabbed a parachute pack, and had taken a running jump off the ramp. Sliding on his stomach, Batman curled one hand around the side of the control panel - the only thing attached to the floor - and his other latched firmly onto Nightwing's arm.

A pained gasp escaped Nightwing's lips - the jolt might have been enough to dislocate his shoulder - but the grasp was returned around Batman's forearm. Nightwing looked up at him, disbelievingly.

"Batman… how are you even here?"

Before he could respond, that familiar look of authority and clarity set back into Nightwing's face.

"The hidden blue button on the right of the control panel face," he shouted above the din. "Press and hold it; it'll pause this thing dead in its tracks. Won't stop gravity, but it'll buy enough time to look for another parachute, or maybe find the grapnels in your belt. I don't know exactly where we are, and I doubt this went straight up, but here's hoping there might be skyscrapers to swing from... Duck!" In tandem, two heads bobbed as a chair flew past, a hair's-width from clipping an ear, and tumbled out of the chasm towards earth.

Keeping a crushingly tight hold on Nightwing, Batman twisted and tried to hoist himself up to the panel with his other arm, but his elbow was locked straight with the strain of being stretched taut.

"I can't pull us both up," he ground out with exertion.

"I _know_!"

…

Eternity stretched out over the course of a second. Eyes wide with shock, Batman looked down at Nightwing again, and his sinking stomach could no longer be solely attributed to the sensation of rapid ascent. Because all this time, he had been dissociating... he was still in costume - mostly - so it was always Nightwing, his former Robin, his trusted ally, his martial partner. But his partner had lost his mask. And he was looking into the trusting… loving… gentle blue eyes of Dick, his best friend… brother-in-arms… erstwhile ward… son.

"_No_."

"Bruce," - Dick's voice was softer now, throwing him back to a time when Dick had just come to the Manor… cajoling Alfred after one of his boyish scrapes….? No… comforting _him_ after a nightmare, when shouldn't it have been the other way round? Nightmare… what was niggling at the back of his confused jumble of thoughts? "…Bruce. Let go."

He felt Dick's fingers loosening, so that his clasp was merely one of comfort, or reassurance. It only made him grip harder.

"I. Said. _No._"

"_Please_, Bruce. Batman never dies, remember? Batman and Robin never die." His eyes were shining and the words came out almost as a sob, yet his old playful smirk ghosted Dick's lips. Batman growled in response.

"_And_ Nightwing. You can't kill Batman and Nightwing. I thought I corrected Two-Face on that, years ago."* But inside, Bruce was shouting. _It's not even about that anymore - what am I even saying? That has nothing to do with it! What I want to say is that I am NOT letting go of you, Dick… _

Off to one side, a steel sheet wrenched off with a metallic moan. When their eyes met again, Dick's was panicked; time was running out, and dammit, that button would do jack-all if there was nothing left for it to stop...

Then the whole craft pitched to one side and lurched - Bruce's grip was shunted to Dick's wrist... then his fingers... and then...

...nothing at all.

"DICK!" Bruce screamed in horror as his son tumbled out of his line of sight.

But before he could react, his other hand was wrought free and he was following him, his body skidding and spilling over the ramp, plummeting toward the earth below...

* * *

*Batman #442, A Lonely Place of Dying


	2. Chapter 2

With an involuntary roar, Bruce sat up in the pitch dark, brow laced with sweat.

Even through forced deep breaths, his pin-sharp hearing caught the snap of a light switch downstairs that repeated after a long pause, as if Alfred had thought twice about prying at this hour.

_Alfred must be so used to this_, Bruce realised. After all, the manor was hardly a stranger to bad dreams, and much of his own sleeping life had been spent reliving his very real, personal nightmare in multi-sensory, technicolour detail. But Dick's arrival all those years ago had helped blitz many dark demons, and gradually, the pain of the past lost its raw immediacy, to the extent that whenever _that_ memory repeated in his sleep - and it still often did - it played out in sepia or monochrome, like a haunting relic.

Only, something uglier was waiting to take its place. Instead of reliving immutable events, his vivid dreams mutated into a fear of the unknown. The weight of his responsibility over his young charges - first Dick, then Jason, then afterwards Tim - manifested in his subconscious. Bruce was always wrestling with the fear of losing his boys to their vast catalogue of villains, and this grew into increasingly grotesque nightmares after every close shave.

In the past, Bruce had handled this terribly. When first faced with the very real prospect of losing his original Robin to Two-Face and later Joker, his first reaction was to remove Dick from the role entirely. A safe - albeit angry - son was worth infinitely more than a dead partner, he'd assured himself. Well, that approach never failed to end badly, and the latter time effectively spawned both his new Nightwing persona plus a smattering of still-unresolved issues with his mentor.

Since then, Bruce thought he'd become damn good at being able to tell his fears apart from the reality. Admittedly, his methods still had to undergo some fine-tuning when dealing with Jason. But now, as long as he was satisfied that he had worked and planned for _every_ conceivable eventuality before patrol, he would let it go, hand Robin the jump-line and trust in his partner's extensive capabilities. The result was pleasing; Tim thrived in the wake of Bruce's attitudinal adjustment.

Which led right back to the matter at hand - this dream. Which was, of course, _all_ it was. An implausible, inexplicable and silly dream that just needed compartmentalising, like all the others.

…So why did it feel so different?

Bruce was a detective who believed in utilising a heady mix of both evidence _and_ gut instinct. He could ignore neither one, and there was definitely something pricking at the edges of his mind. Not to mention that he'd been having the same dream for the last ten nights.

He put his hands to his head in frustration. This was _stupid_.

And yet he would never get any rest unless he could shake his unease. He pondered his options. Contacting Dick - no way, out of the question. Last time he had visited, they hadn't parted on the best of terms, so he would probably accuse Batman of checking up on him.

Reluctantly, Bruce bit down his pride, threw off the sheets and patched himself through to Oracle. Unwilling to seem selectively overprotective, he demanded a status update on all his cohorts currently in the field.

Hardly a minute later, Oracle's avatar blinked at him from his screen.

"Oracle. Report."

_"All tonight's active operatives have checked in. Robin is still patrolling, covering for you after your Wayne Enterprises charity function. He's stationed on the corner of 6th and 32nd, but all's quiet after last night's arrests, just as predicted. He's promised, again, to call if anything is needed. Batgirl is in New York - little activity at present, but she's following a lead that Nightwing passed on while he's back in Blüdhaven."_

Oracle's tone turned a little more jovial. _"And Nightwing muttered something about it being slow-going on some dull case he's stuck on while the Titans are on annual leave. Which, might I guess, has _nothing whatsoever_ to do with you. He thinks you must've been _real_ mad at him after last time."_

Batman grunted. So what if he knew they were dreams - wouldn't stop him from ensuring that Nightwing wouldn't remotely be going near anything that could possibly involve any flying metal _deathtraps_. So yes, he might have put a little something together after the third night, just to keep his boy occupied while he worked through his… issues.

_"…you know, you could call and say hi yourself, once in a while."_ Oh, Babs was onto him. She was one of few bold enough to offer the Bat anything even resembling personal advice, and was never afraid of pushing him.

To her surprise, instead of the expected rebuff or wall of stony displeasure, Batman huffed, "Maybe. Now is not the time."

_"Right. Whatever you say, boss. Well, my cue to sign off. Goodnight to you, Batman."_

Heh. _Good night. Haven't had one for almost two weeks_, he wanted to respond. Instead, he sighed and flicked the monitor off. Clearly, he was just a little more worked up than usual - he certainly regretted being snared with smalltalk at the cheeseboard earlier that night. In fact, he _had_ been cajoled into sampling the entire selection of cheeses - yes, that must be it...

Forcibly pushing all thoughts to the back of his mind, Bruce returned to bed and tapped his old meditation techniques, vying to rest before his full schedule of board meetings in the morning.

As he sank into fitful slumber, his consciousness was plunged back into a haze of choking smoke, screeching metal and that shaky sensation of upward propulsion…

* * *

"Bruce, let go..."

"I said _NO..."_

* * *

"DICK!"

Bruce's dream had always ended at that point - with loss of control, and accelerated somersaulting into the sky.

But it was almost as if, by taking that unprecedented step of contacting Oracle that night, he had somehow unlocked the next level. The dream played out just as before, but as the seconds stretched into minutes and the wind roared in his ears, the clouds started to part, revealing a familiar cityscape below…

_Whuumf._ -The wind was knocked out of him; it felt like a compacter had slammed into his right side. Something solid encircled his waist, and instead of careening downwards, he was shunted horizontally, and slowing down - stopping now, hovering...

"_Batman_?"

The voice had a strange echo, as if it didn't quite belong in the fabric of the dream. Then Batman found himself being grasped at arms length, staring into an equally shell-shocked face.

It belonged to Superman.


	3. Chapter 3

"Clark! Clark, what in the… Clark, what's wrong?"

Lois was sitting up beside him, cupping his cheek with her fingertips, her brown hair tumbling about her nightdress. She smiled gently, uncertainly, and he felt her other hand slide gently over his white knuckles, easing them from their tight grasp of the sheets. When he didn't let go, she absorbed his confusion and lightened her tone several notches.

She teased, "Who were you in holding in your dream? Should I be jealous?"

"I… what? No! I was… saving someone?" Clark countered, uneasily. It was so unlike him to be ruffled by his subconscious wanderings. Despite not needing sleep, he had always enjoyed his periods of self-induced meditations, and he wasn't ashamed of the way his sappy side came out when he woke next to a slumbering Lois. But his latest visions could not be further than the mental therapy his dreams usually provided.

Clark was troubled. And that, in itself, was worrisome.

The truth was, he had been having the same vision several times a week now. He rewound and tried to remember. It always started with Lois - a sterner, more serious Lois, smart and immaculate in her interviewing suit, speaking in the clipped, professional tones she'd employ when Perry was hovering around.

"Clark. I need to speak to you for a minute."

Clark would already be standing, flapping around his desk for a missing page to his latest submission, and trying to manoeuvre away from Jimmy's frantic rummaging.

"Right now? Gee, Lois, my deadline is…"

"Now. Please, Clark. It's important. And you want to hear it."

Lois rarely wore that look. Clark felt a flurry of intrigue, anxiety and bemusement; before he knew it, she was pulling him into the nearest empty office.

"Just promise me one thing, OK? Just - for a few minutes, don't disappear on me. If there's any time to listen, it's gotta be this."

Despite the urgency in her words, there was a restlessness that ate at him. The season's sun was starting to hang lower and duskier in the sky, and he was distracted by the particles of dust illuminated by the slants of mellow rays. Something felt… off.

Fingernails flicked sharply, just once, at his glasses, in exasperation.

"I never ask this of you. You know this. But just this once, on everything you love an hold dear, I need you to completely tune everything else out, and hear what I have to say. Can you please do that for me?"

Clark swallowed. On everything he loved and held dear? Yes, he could do this for her.

"I hear you, Lois. I'm putting everything else on mute. I'm yours."

Lois blinked. "You can do that?"

"Lois."

"Right." With a deep breath, she slid away from the desk-edge, heels pacing in front of the window. "I know this is massive. It's a game-changer. Which is why I need you to know, to understand…"

Clark frowned. It was hard to understand what she's saying. This part was always terribly fuzzy, and it takes so much effort and concentration just to _focus_.

True to his word, he heard nothing else but her voice for…minutes? Was it even that long? It's only when he _saw _a seismic shift out of that top-storey window that he was shocked out of his forcible embargo, and suddenly a cacophony of noise crashed into his head. His temples exploded with the sudden tidal wave of screams and shouts, and he barely registered Lois' annoyance at his distraction. Her back was to the window and the glass behind her painted the picture: something gargantuan was falling out of the sky - either that, or the sky was falling.

Momentarily slack-jawed and uncomprehending, it was only Jimmy's breathless entrance that jolted him out of his reverie.

Lois swung her eyes towards the window, then locked back on him.

"_Clark._" Confusion. Panic. Betrayal.

He was torn. He hated to break a promise. But Lois was safe here, and this was life-endangering for the whole city - and - something, something more. He couldn't shake the notion that his actions might have a ripple effect that would shape the course of the future.

Then a flaming piece of wreckage whizzed down like a comet-tail, and all bets were off.

Scraps were showering down on the city, burning up and clanging down amidst the scattering bystanders. Superman caught one steel plate and picked up a businesswoman from the path of another, but the street-level shouting turned his attention upwards.

It was hard to see through the sooty haze, but - there they were: two bodies, tumbling down from the hulking wreckage, amidst careening debris. With a sharp bite of horror, Superman noted that they were both at terminal velocity.

He knew he'd have to match the speed alongside a falling body to avoid killing his catch. He calculated the sums instantaneously: the rough mass of the figures; the gap between the two; the distance to the ground of each. It all led to one chilling conclusion -

He didn't believe he could save both.

Even at top speed, it was probabilities in the face of basic physics: irrefutable. Immutable. Every second of hesitation was increasingly deadly. He had to make a choice.

Something had to tip the balance. And it did - in the form of two very deliberate words.

"Save him!" His ears heard the call - not one of raw horror, as he so often heard from fallers- but rather, it smacked of desperation. Clark could never pin it down afterwards, but the closest he got was that it was like a battlefield command, one with unmistakeable _reason_ behind it, to be ignored at peril. But it was also heartfelt, and conveyed so much more than only two words should allow. "Save _him._" It was spoken, rather than screamed; it was meant for him, alone.

No time to think. Choice removed, it was the reflex of a soldier and a leader, spurred on by the firm absolution in his directive, in the blind hope of saving at least one. With a fell swoop, he obeyed and gunned straight for the top, willing himself faster as his fist clenched tighter, punching through the air.

_Whuumf. _The crook of Superman's arm slammed into flesh at full pelt, hooking around the waist for a firm hold. As he began promptly to decelerate, he noticed the unusual firmness of the torso, and a distinctive familiarity began to creep into his consciousness…

Time slowed impossibly. He had reached a stop, hovering over the rooftops. Superman shifted and grasped his catch at arm's length, and was shocked to find himself gazing at his erstwhile friend's face.

"Batman?"

The cowl was cracked, and an eyelet was missing its lens: one stony blue eye was glaring at him, glazed, and slightly crazed. His flinty voice was more gnarled than ever, as if his throat nodules had been scorched in the explosion - otherwise, if Clark hadn't known better from Batman, he would think it was raw with emotion.

"WHAT. Did. You. Just. Do?"

Defiance flitted over him, briefly. _How about, I just saved you? Despite you _not_ calling for help, being in Metropolis? …What did _YOU_ do? _But the words died on his lips. For some reason, he was tongue-tied, and the whole thing just seemed _wrong_. He could only stare.

Batman started again. "WHY—"

Just then, a sickening crash reached his enhanced ears that pierced sharper than any shard of kryptonite. It was beyond the range of human hearing, but Batman felt, rather than heard it, and he tensed in Superman's grasp.

It began to dawn on Superman just what he had, and had not, done.

What - or who - he had saved, and what - or who - they had lost.

The smoke began to clear.

* * *

"…you were dreaming? I didn't know you had nightmares." Lois. Still speaking to him. He was thankful. But Batman was on his mind. Real or no, it hurt to see his friend so… broken. And lingering tendrils of grief were still unfurling in the dark.

"It was just… a bit… heavy. People I couldn't save. People I know."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lois asked, but her words were half yawned and she was already sinking back into the duvet.

Clark found his mind wandering. _Yeah, that'd be a great conversation. Hey, Bats, it's been a while; guess what I dreamt last night? I saved you from becoming a pancake ('cause goodness knows how much you love being rescued) but left your son, who you've not talked to for months, to a gruesome death, and you blamed me for it. Yeah. It was wild._

"No, sweetheart. Just a bad dream. No point dredging up a bunch of angst over something that won't happen."

Of course, the _last_ person with whom he would ever discuss this dream was Bruce.

* * *

Bruce, meanwhile, had woken at the same point in the dream, and was more perturbed than before. He was starting to get a dim sense of exactly _when_ he had previously felt the same sensation: the ultra-vivid projections, the same ugly foreboding.

Back then, that nightmare had not exactly matched the actual events that unfolded, but they were not far off, and the results had been just as soul-destroying.

It was when Jason had died at the hands of the Joker.


End file.
